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Weeve: Empowering the Economy of Things by marrying loT and Blockchain Technology

Harald Zapp, Co-founder & CEO

Blockchain technology in simple terms can be thought of as a record book that holds all transactions between a group of people (decentralized distributed ledger). This record book is not owned by one person and is not updated by any designated scribe, rather copies of the record book are kept by individual people who are concerned with these transactions and it is automatically updated to ensure standardization between the record books (decentralized). For a transaction to occur and to be recorded in the book (into blocks), the whole of the group must verify the transaction to legitimate it (consensus). Once documented, the records cannot be changed (immutable). This mass legitimization ensures that exchanges of transactions are only possible if the value exists.

For example, if you wanted to send $10 to another member (peer) in the group (network of nodes on the blockchain), the network collectively would verify that you have $10 to send. This ensures that you can only make verifiable transactions and cannot send your only $10 to more than 1 person in a transaction (double spending). Blockchain is also categorized to be decentralized, as not one person in the group owns the record book and has the power to verify transactions, but rather the group works together (decentralized).

With loT pervading every business domain and companies ready to bet big on it, blockchain is viewed as the means to ensure that the data generated is correctly stored in a secure database and can be relied and acted upon. But with the data getting corrupted right at the source, whoever places a wager on this loT-blockchain amalgamation stands to lose. The exigency now is a trust less system which can put a hallmark on the data to ensure its preciseness and accuracy. For Harald Zapp, this market gap culminated into weeve and the industry’s first OS for IoT. Zapp, CEO of the Berlin-based firm says, “Our aim is to ensure that loT devices can securely harvest testified data from the source and safely transport the data to the blockchain where it can be traded with a verifiable value. Instead of relying on lengthy ledgers for authentication, weeve relies on blockchain’s distributed ledger, while we secure data transport right at the source and attest the data with the weeve technology.”

Our aim is to ensure that loT devices can securely harvest testified data from the source and safely transport the data to the blockchain

The OS, known as weeveOS, is a lightweight, secure-by-design IoT-to-blockchain system that enables the transportation of cryptographically attested data to the blockchain and allows for data marketplaces to be built around sensor systems rapidly. The weeveOS intertwines recent advances in cryptography and system security to shield data generation and thwart the signing of unauthorized transactions; it leverages ARM Trustzone to create trusted execution environments. The platform has been designed to protect the wallet and data harvesting against any compromise or hack. Zapp calls it the “MS-DOS of sensors” and stresses that the focus primarily is to instill trust and security into an loT environment.

Two key technologies play a crucial role in the functioning of the platform. First is a structured execution engine that identifies whether or not a sensor or device is operating in the intended way. Next is something similar to the protocol—HTTPS—which governs the exchange of data between a browser and a website. Called MQTTS, this protocol is a low-latency and high-throughput one which is specifically designed for secure transportation of loT data. Combining these two, weeve leverages blockchain technology and testified smart contracts that serve as proof of the accuracy of data transactions, driving “honesty in the Economy of Things”.